On the 24th February 2002, seventeen years ago this weekend, Peterborough Pirates played their last ever game in a 9-1 British National League victory over Cardiff Devils.
The fixture came just three months short of the 20th anniversary of their first appearance on the ice as Pirates in the summer of 1982. It was never intended to be the final game nor final season and the immediate outlook for the club was a bright one but a simmering boardroom feud that had been running since December 2001 saw the much loved team cast aside as a spoil of war from the power struggle.
To the relief of fans, most of the players stayed with the club who were to re-emerge on 4th September 2002 in new colours as Peterborough Phantoms.
Pirates played a total of 966 games, scoring 5,937 goals and racking up 18,955 penalty minutes. During the course of next season, Phantoms will overtake Pirates in terms of total games played !